Moldovan parliament votes for dismissal of Prosecutor General

Chisinau, 9 July /MOLDPRES/ - The parliament today adopted, with the votes of 56 lawmakers, a decision ascertaining that Eduard Harunjen had not met the conditions for the appointment to the office of Prosecutor General. Subsequently, the draft will be submitted to the head of state, who informed that he would issue a decree on the dismissal of Harunjen.     

The decision was passed after more than two hours of discussions and speeches. The MPs of the Democratic Party (PDM) had walked out of the session hall before the decision was put to vote, on grounds that “the institution of prosecutor’s office and its independence” would be ruined through this draft. Democrat lawmaker Sergiu Sarbu reiterated, at the parliament’s rostrum, that the Constitutional Court had declared the decree on the appointment to office of Eduard Harunjen as constitutional.    

The draft decision on the finding out of the non-meeting of the conditions for the appointment of Eduard Harunjen to the office of Prosecutor General was put forward by the parliamentary majority, which says that the current prosecutor would not have right to hold this position, for reasons that he was member of the Superior Council of Prosecutors (CSP). “Eduard Harunjen was, de jure, CSP member since the beginning of exercising the interim duties in February 2016 till his appointment to office. His formal non-participation in the CSP meetings does not cancel his capacity of CSP member. The condition of eligibility was disregarded at his appointment; he could not be allowed to the contest for the office of prosecutor general and could not be appointed prosecutor general,” an MP of the ACUM bloc, Sergiu Litvinenco, said.         

On 8 July, President Igor Dodon said that, immediately after the procedures on the legislative dimension are carried out, he would sign the decree on the dismissal of the Prosecutor General.

Eduard Harunjen was appointed Prosecutor General of Moldova in December 2016. He is 47 years old and has worked at the Prosecutor’s Office of the Chisinau municipality since 1994. Starting from 1996 till 2005, Harunjen held the position of deputy head of more departments at the Interior Ministry. On the period 2011-2013, he was prosecutor for special missions at the Prosecutor General’s Office; subsequently, Harunjen held the office of anticorruption prosecutor and first deputy of the Prosecutor General.